


Silent Nights Are Overrated

by HeartEyes4Mariska



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alcohol, Caretaking, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Comfort, F/M, First Time, Fun, Gift Giving, Holidays, Love Confessions, Making Love, My First Work in This Fandom, Oral Sex, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Sex, Snowball Fight, Tender Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:34:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28638600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartEyes4Mariska/pseuds/HeartEyes4Mariska
Summary: A little Christmas fluff story, with fun scenes and romantic tones. Set during the period when El and Kathy were apart. Elliot spends Christmas with Liv, instead of alone.
Relationships: Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Spoilers: Fault, Fat, Underbelly  
  
Rating: K+ for the first 3 chapters**

Her silent night was too silent.

Olivia had never been one much for Christmas. Naturally, she chalked that up to her childhood and, in more recent years, on the death of her mother. Lack of family outside her squad didn't do much to bolster Christmas spirit. In the early years, when she first partnered with Elliot, he had invited her to join his family for the holiday (what little time any of them got during that time of the year, anyway). Once or twice she had even accepted. But after short, tense small talk with Elliot and Kathy, Liv had mostly just played around with the kids, picked at a plate of food that she never fully finished, and then made excuses and apologies to rush home.

This year, of course, Elliot had no reason to stubbornly convince her to visit - he and Kathy were finalizing their divorce. Kathy had the kids until New Year's and was away visiting her parents. And yet somehow, Olivia still found herself spending Christmas alone, in her over-warm, under-decorated apartment. Some version of Silent Night was murmuring out of her CD player as she swirled red wine absently around in a glass.

She had put off leaving the precinct as long as she could, her eyes dry and stinging over a stack of paperwork, but finally the relative silence of the squad room had gotten to her, so she had walked home. The irony of how beautiful it was that night was not lost on her as she made her way. Snow was falling gently, and the city was lit up more than usual with seasonal additions to all the neighbourhoods. Couples dawdled, hand-in-hand, pointing every now and then at a display, or item in a shop window. Once she had tossed her keys to the kitchen counter and locked her apartment door behind her, she had decided to put a Christmas CD in the player and drink. Call her a masochist if you will, but sometimes wallowing in it worked better than trying to act like it wasn't there.

_Speaking of things that weren't there. . . ._

Olivia allowed herself to wonder what Elliot was doing with his Christmas Eve. She imagined him on the phone with one of his kids, talking about last minute Santa things. Then she conjured up an image of Elliot just like herself: alone, drinking, and resenting the holiday.

Olivia snorted into her glass at the pair of them. Weathered cops, and self-loathers who had failed at relationships while their careers had been steadily successful.

" . . . and isolating," Liv said out loud to herself. Silent Night had changed to Winter Song with Ingrid Michaelson. Stretching, Olivia rolled her neck from side to side, relishing the snap of tendons.

_My words will be your light  
To carry you to me_

She crossed to her living room window, comforted by the crawl of traffic below and the familiar sounds of Manhattan. A knock at the door startled her back to real-time from her slow-motion fog. Ever a cop, she picked up her gun from the coffee table along her way to the door. "It's not fucking carollers," she muttered, setting her glass on the counter and continuing to the peep-hole.

She cursed the unstoppable jump in her heart rate caused by Elliot's face. Absently, she swiped her palm down her leg and unbolted the door. "El?" she questioned, raising an eyebrow.

He was grinning, and that alone was curious. Bundled in his winter jacket, snowflakes were still melting on his shoulders and twinkling in the light from her apartment. His gloved hands were full at his sides, one with what look like a six-pack of beer, the other with a package she couldn't decipher. "You gonna let me in?" He stamped snow off his boots.

"Shouldn't you be talking to your kids?" Olivia moved aside and then shut the door behind him.

Elliot put the bags he was carrying on the counter on the other side of Liv's red wine bottle and removed his gloves. "Nah," he half-shook his head, "they called me earlier, but they're busy now with the grandparents' traditions and figuring out how to sleep before one AM." He chuckled as he finished shrugging out of his coat, hat, scarf.

Olivia smirked faintly and then took a deep breath. She had such a hard time, when the cop in her constantly sought direct answers. "El."

"Yeah?"

"What are you doin' here?" Her tone was really neither annoyed, nor worried, just a little tired.

Elliot grinned again. "Merry Christmas Eve, Liv."

Olivia smiled a bit, in spite of herself, but merely widened her eyes, waiting for more of an explanation. He cleared his throat and looked down, vaguely aware of the water he was now leaving on Olivia's floor. Without looking up, like a guilty child, he said "I dunno, Liv . . . we don't have to work . . . we both live alone . . ." he shrugged. "It's Christmas Eve. Wouldn't it be better to spend it with a friend?"

_A friend_. Olivia's mind flinched away from the word. Elliot Stabler was her partner - had been for more than seven years now - and partner was the only word that seemed to fit around her tongue to describe what he was to her. Other than . . .

_. . . man you can never have?_

Liv silenced the voice in her head and nodded towards Elliot's boots. "You're dripping on my tile, Stabler."

"Sorry." El went back to the door and kicked the boots off. "Can I offer ya a beer?"

"I'll stick with wine, thanks." Liv topped off her glass and went back to the couch.

"Suit yourself." He grabbed a bottle and stored the rest in the fridge. When he dropped down next to her on the couch, she noticed he had the second bag with him. "Cheers?" He tipped the bottle toward her.

"Cheers."

They passed the next moments in their familiar wordlessness, while Olivia's Christmas music mumbled on in the background.

"Do you like Christmas, Liv?"

She expelled a slow breath, and spread her hands open, palms up, over the coffee table in a casual gesture. "No family . . . my mother's gone. When she was alive, she was usually too drunk to make much of the holiday." Olivia considered adding a thought on the fact that she was childless as compared to Elliot's four kids, but she held back. "I guess you could say I'm neutral."

Elliot slung an arm along the back of the couch and leaned back. As always he was comfortable in her apartment, he fit - maybe too much, too easily sometimes. "You know, when I was a kid . . ." Olivia braced herself gently, as her heart filled with the smallest of aches. She wanted, so much, to hear his stories of family life but despite her age, there was a jealousy that lurked. " . . . my parents always made a big deal out for Christmas. The tree, the decorations, the whole nine. There was church, and turkey, and getting dragged to the department store for pictures with Santa."

Olivia smirked into her wine glass. "Oh my."

"Yeah. Then when my own kids were small, Christmas became this different kind of excitement. Since the divoirce," he picked his beer back up, "it's hard. Hard not to . . . to see their faces on Christmas morning."

Liv purposely avoided his eyes, knowing how hard it was for Elliot to talk like this, about feelings and family. She had known so few men as walled up as her partner. Often, she defended that about him, to Cragen, even to Kathy when it was relevant. Perhaps it explained why the revelations always came from him this way - in painful, hushed tones, only to her.

"Liv?" El said then, and she hoped it wasn't obvious that her nickname rolling off his beer-warmed tongue like that made her shiver.

"Mmm?"

"Where's your Christmas tree?"Elliot was peering as far as he could around the apartment from his place on the couch, looking for signs of the traditional yearly greenery.

Liv laughed out loud. "No. No, El, no tree. I can't even remember the last Christmas I had with a tree. I've never had one in this apartment." She jerked her chin towards her living room window. "That's my contribution to the season, there."

Elliot's gaze followed the direction, and found a classic red and white stocking with snowflakes on it, tacked to the wall next to the window. Around the window frame there was a single string of multi-colored lights. An out-of-character Elliot allowed his jaw to gape. "No tree?!" he was incredulous. "But Liv, I mean c'mon . . . ya gotta have a tree! It`s Christmas for God`s sake.``

She met his eyes at last, amused by his deep concern of her treeless lifestyle. His ice blue eyes were different than they seemed under squad room lights. They were softer here, inquisitive in a way that held none of the aggression or impatience he directed towards their perps. Again, as ever, she felt warmth, mixed with the wine turn over in her belly. He looked good - casual, in jeans, and a thin but soft sweater with the sleeves pushed to his fingers twitched with wanting to touch him. Of her few weaknesses, Elliot was the deepest, and as time kept plodding on, it seemed to grow worse. There had been a time when she had been able to mask this so much better.

Olivia cleared her throat and pushed to her feet, returning to her bottle of wine at the counter in an effort to put some distance between them. ``Sorry to disappoint, El. If it helps, it`s not like I`d have anything to put on it, anyway.`` She turned back again, this time leaning against the counter. The look in Elliot`s eyes was unreadable.

``Nah . . . nah, Liv,`` he said, more firmly now, also rising to his feet. "That's not right. Christmas with no tree? There oughtta be a law!"

Olivia grinned. "Ah. Okay. Well, we can get Novak on that as soon as all the SVU cases are solved." She watched him pace the short length of her couch in his sock feet, once. Twice. "El . . ."

He stopped, and looked at her. Now she could definitely read his eyes, the look familiar: stubborn, and determined. He said, "Do you have a jacket?"

"No," she deadpanned. "I've never owned one of those, either."

Elliot came around the coffee table and placed his hands on her shoulders. It was an effort not to let her eyes flutter closed at the warmth of his skin. "Get your coat, Liv. C'mon."

"Where're we going, Elliot?" Liv's eyebrows went up again.

He smiled so big this time that Liv felt that ache again. "We're goin to get you a Christmas tree!"

"What? El, no," she replied, but he was already at his boots. Liv glanced at the face of the delicate watch she was wearing. "El, it's Christmas Eve! And it's already past six! Where do you expect to find a tree this late?"

Elliot was doing up his coat. "I know a place."

Damn that man. She was sure it was moments like this which had helped make it impossible to know just when she had fallen in love with him. His stoic need to take care of her, in spite of his busy life and their careers, both touched and aggravated her. It was so alien for her to allow any care into her life at all, but she was also sure that the few-and-far-between men that she'd dated in seven years felt how hard it was, for her to hide it. Not her love for Elliot, but how easy it was for her to let him care, and how impossible she found it to allow her lovers the same privilege.

"Are you going to get your coat on, or do I have to walk all over your tiles again?" Elliot asked, interrupting her thoughts.

She sighed, holstering her Glock and retrieving her jacket. "Wouldn't it be easier to just go to your place, if you already have a tree?" she tried, but she knew it was hopeless. Elliot had found something he could give her, and he wouldn't relent until he got it - he took to much pride in the conquering of something so tangible.

In his rush to get out the door, neither of them thought to turn off the CD player. Nor did Olivia remember to ask about the second bag Elliot had brought with him.


	2. Chapter 2

Olivia never had any issue keeping pace with Elliot, so they rushed together down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk as if they were on a case, hot in pursuit. "Elliot, I really don't think . . ." she started again, "I mean, you don't have to."

"I want to," he said simply.

So, for a few minutes, Liv stopped trying to argue and tried for once to enjoy the evening. It was Elliot, after all, so what did she really have to complain about? She pushed her gloved hands deep into her pockets and looked up at the still-falling snow. Every now and then she snuck a sideways glance at her partner. It was true that he'd been different since the separation; he'd thrown himself even further into his work (a feat everyone thought impossible) and he worried over his time with his kids. Still, Olivia hadn't seen him happy much - and tonight he was. As happy as a man like Elliot ever got, truth be told.

They crossed a street and rounded a last corner as Elliot said, "Right up here." Sure enough, ahead of them in a small, empty lot space, was an older man standing under a banner with X-MAS TREES scrawled on it.

"I can only imagine what's left," Olivia smirked. Elliot shot her a look.

"Merry Christmas folks!" the salesman said brightly as they stepped into the lot, and the detectives both nodded politely.

Of course, Olivia had been mostly right - it was Christmas Eve, and the leftovers were slim. A lot of the trees were very obviously too tall, too short, or had noticeable holes. She chuckled as Elliot disappeared among tree rows, wondering what Charlie Brown specimen he would come up with.

The smell of evergreens was still strong, and Olivia breathed deep, allowing herself to relax a little. She chided herself for being wound so tight. It wasn't as if she and Elliot never spent time together. Countless, endless hours in fact - of meals, all-night stakeouts, drinks at cop bars, and yes, even time spent at her apartment over beer and pizza, when the job got too hard and spouses like Kathy cold never understand.

That voice in her head, the one becoming increasingly harder to ignore, spoke again. It reminded her ruthlessly that this was Christmas, and therefore different. A family and lover holiday . . . But she ignored it and followed El into the trees. Liv absently trailed her gloved hand along tree branches as she went, momentarily lost in her own world at last.

"I think I found it."

Elliot's voice came from behind her, and it did succeed in startling her a bit. She turned to find him supporting the tree he'd rummaged, with both hands. Liv did as best she could to swallow a chuckle. It was a little shorter than Elliot, and almost . . . aggressively . . . bushy. El raised an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

Olivia smiled warmly, touched by how hard he was trying, and everything that had been wound in her let go, making her realized how much she wanted to enjoy herself. "I think it's great, El." He returned the smile, and she knew he'd been in need of praise. She followed him to the front of the lot and the sales guy, Elliot navigating carefully by peering through branches.

"A real beaut!" the seller crowed. Elliot fished his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans under his jacket. "For you, fifty bucks."

Elliot took a deep breath, and Olivia knew without even seeing his face that the blue of his eyes had just changed. Not wanting anything to mar the excitement that had finally started rising in her, Olivia stepped forward, smiled her best fuck-me smile and blinked her long lashes slowly. "How about for me?"

The older man met Olivia's eyes and it worked before she even had to blink a third time. "Aw, alrite. I know it's Christmas Eve, and I'm a softy. Just don't wait so damn long next year, doll." He looked back to Elliot. "How about 30?"

"Sold."

Back out on the sidewalk, Liv looked around the tree curiously. "Now what?"

"Now we drag it home." Liv's heart pounded at the way the word home sounded from him.

"Do you need a hand?"

"Nah, I got it," he assured her, using both hands again to manage it, making Liv smirk at his masculine posturing. "There's a park nearby, on the way back. Let's take the scenic route."

The light snow had finally tapered off when they got to the park. It was next to deserted, but decorated modestly for the season. Elliot had to give in and take a break, so he leaned the tree up against the nearest bench, brushing pine needles from his jacket.

"You're showing your age, Stabler," Liv told him, letting a laugh escape her.

"Was that a _giggle_ , Detective Benson?" his tone was one of genuine surprise. "Huh. I didn't think that ever happened."

She shrugged. "Before SVU, I laughed a lot, El." They shared a look that only police partners could master - a metaphor of the darkness, the evil you have to allow to touch you in their line of work. She turned to admire the lights in the big park trees, and the smell of cold in her nostrils.

It was then that the snowball hit her.

Her gun hand twitched, unable to evade her cop reflexes, but she reminded herself this wasn't work, turning to look at Elliot in disbelief. It hadn't been a very big snowball, and he'd lobbed it from close by, so it had splattered softly on the shoulder of her jacket. Still, it was so immensely foreign within Olivia to react to fun for the sake of fun that she had to bite her tongue before a reprimand came out. Elliot, not surprisingly, was grinning like a damn fool.

"El . . . "

"Liv?" he tipped his head, innocently.

"A snowball? Really?"

"Now who's showing their age?" he smirked. Liv let out a breath that punctuated the cold air with a white cloud. "How does a 20-second head start sound?"

"You're serious."

"Very." He crouched down on his very muscular haunches and began packing his next snowball. Olivia sighed, opening her mouth as if to protest, but El shook his head. "Tick-tock, Liv. Better run."

She surveyed the blue of his eyes one more time. And then she did - she ran. She sprinted as far as her runner's legs would take her in a quick bound and then crouched, grabbing as much loose snow as she could. Turning as she packed it together, Elliot wasn't where she'd left him. She let cop mode take over then, pulling into herself, looking for signs. Her eyes narrowed, scanning.

The bench, where they'd leaned the tree. He threw then, fast and accurate from years of playing catch with Dickie, and Olivia saw his arm appear from behind the bench just a moment too late. It got her square in the chest, and the shriek of enjoyment mixed with competitiveness shocked them both. Elliot caught his breath at the sound of it. Liv was normally so serious - they both were - and he shivered at the sight and sound of her so joyful.

The moment gave her just enough time to start running again, and Elliot launched from behind the bench to follow. Years of chasing after the bad guys had made both of them all too familiar with the game of dash-and-cover - except they had always been running towards each other, without a reason for trying to get away.

Olivia rounded a turn in the walking path and dashed into a small stand of trees and brush, still holding the snowball she hadn't thrown. She heard him enter the stand, earlier than she had, so she immediately cut a diagonal path and kept going in order to exit as far on the opposite side as she could. It worked - she broke from the brush about six feet ahead of Elliot, who had his back turned, looking for her in the opposite direction. She hit him in the back, between his shoulder blades, and she nearly clapped in triumph, before she hit the ground running again, knowing he'd be coming. Needing more ammunition, this time Olivia chose an open expanse on a slight rise, no cover in sight.

Her career-sharpened hearing was aware of the muffled crunching of Elliot's bootsteps catching up to her, so she dove for more snow as soon as her feet reached the highest point of the knoll's rise. Miscalculating her balance was her fatal mistake, when she tried to scoop snow with her long arms and tried to maintain her the majority of her speed. She had already started to topple when she felt Elliot's hard frame catch up and collide with her, taking them both rolling down the other side of the knoll.

They came to a stop, both out of breath and laughing, with Elliot on top of her. Bringing her hand up, she smashed what snow she had managed to grab onto his knit cap and said, "That's a tie game, El," with pride.

"Nah, nah," he denied, "Time out! I want the Ref to call it!" They were both catching their breath, coming down a bit, and he said, more softly: "You okay?"

It was so easy, sometimes, for Olivia to forget that they did this - easily and unintentionally acted like a couple, and a longtime one at that. A long moment passed before the weight of Elliot's body, protecting her from the cold, ignited that slow burn again. It reached her eyes before she could tamp it, and she saw El lick his lips.

"I'm good," she assured him, and rolled to make him move. His warm breath tickled her ear and neck as they sat up together, and she worried he'd see her pulse, furious at the pulse-point in her neck, galloping. "What if someone steals the tree?" she asked.

"Who?" he chuckled, waving a hand outward at the empty park. He rose to his feet and gave her his hand to pull her up. "I'd buy ya another one," he said simply.

It moved her, and Olivia started wondering if she should be trusting her reactions anymore, as she was approaching giddiness. Maybe a silent night, another Christmas alone would have been less dangerous. This ground was so unfamiliar.

The tree was still there, so they took it home.


	3. Chapter 3

Olivia never could have imagined that watching Elliot wrangle a tree up her apartment stairs would be so enjoyable. She hadn't even bothered to suggest he try the elevator - she knew he was purely showing off, at this point. He wouldn't allow any space for the possibility of not carrying this act all the way through.

"Yeah, keep laughin'," Elliot grunted, finally able to drop the tree against the wall next to Olivia's front door.

"Hey, this was your idea, Stabler," Liv reminded him, fishing for her keys.

After they were inside and undressed again, Elliot busied himself shaking snowflakes from the branches. Liv crossed the room and finally turned off the still-playing CD, and El immediately protested.

"What'd ya do that for? It's nicer with the music, don't you think?"

She was still struggling to adjust to Elliot like this, without the anger and heaviness of the precinct on him. "Sure, El," she smiled, and punched the play button again.

"Where do you want it?"

Turning to him, she eyed the tree skeptically. "You're asking me? Trees are your tradition, not mine."

"Well, now it can be yours, too, can't it?" he smiled, and something in his eyes made her question trusting herself, again.

She cleared a spot in the corner of the room opposite the window. Elliot refused to relent, insisting that he could somehow come up with a makeshift tree stand, using a pot for water and a few other kitchen utensils. Olivia marvelled from her place on the couch, holding her wine again, thinking how impossible it could have been for Kathy to say no, or not fall for Elliot all those years ago. _If he'd been like this before SVU . . ._

Olivia swallowed hard, mid-thought, feeling helpless against the damage that seven years in sex crimes had done to her partner.

And herself.

Olivia had been jealous, so often, of Elliot's having a family outside of the 1-6 that she hardly allowed herself to acknowledge it anymore. There was no knowing the number of nights that she had stayed behind in the bullpen, hours after Elliot had gone home to a bed warmed by someone else's body, simply for not wanting to return to her own empty apartment. He and Kathy had already been apart longer than Olivia ever could have imagined Elliot being able to stand - too much of his being a cop and being a man was built on labels like father and husband. She wasn't oblivious to how his approach to cases was taking a hit, how he seemed less sure sometimes and even more helpless against his own temper than he ever had.

There was a normalcy and a protection in Elliot`s being married that ran so deep that Liv simply functioned on the assumption that eventually, El would drag his pride behind him, back to Kathy and try again. Elliot's being single was dangerous - for both of them. She was too lonely, and he was too vulnerable. His rigid sense of Catholic duty to his wife and kids had been the sole boundary they held onto, for years now. That boundary was everything - it formed the respect that Olivia had for his marriage, the love she had for his kids, and it was the foundation on which she had built all of her letting go. Letting go of the idea that she could have Elliot outside of the job. Letting go of the idea that she was healthy enough to find her own love and family beyond the squad.

Too many times she had tried. Tried dating someone and maintaining the job, her partner. At first, she hadn't recognized the strange need to keep it from Elliot. Was she cheating? Logic said no, but Olivia held more than a hint of guilt . All the late nights at the desk, stakeouts in cars . . . she could never seem to find the right moment to tell Elliot when there was a man in her life. His eyes would always give him away, even though his mouth spoke only encouragement. Once he did find out, one way or another, it was a death toll. She'd end it. Or push so hard and so fast that the other person had no choice but to end it.

When it ended, she always felt a place in her chest that unhitched. Elliot would come in early the day after she'd text. He'd wordlessly slide coffee and breakfast onto her desk, always just the way she liked it, and would touch her shoulder. Maybe he saw it as sympathy, but for Olivia it was always just their partnership returning to normal. _Normal_. Normal was her being single and him going home to Kathy. Normal was her nights spent alone in her apartment, wracked with nightmares, while Elliot was up with his sick kids.

This - Christmas Eve together - didn't qualify as normal. Elliot smiling so lightly, and throwing snowballs in the park, his standing in her living room and humming along to Christmas music while he anchored a tree to a pot, was not normal. She was too close to the knowledge of how much she wanted this, outside of their being cops, and deep down she could feel all the alarm bells going off.

Elliot finally stood up, admiring his ingenuity. "There. Think I earned m'self a beer," he said smugly.

"Will this one work?" Olivia held up the bottle she had pulled from the fridge. El turned to find her right behind him and he broke into a smile so bright that Liv almost flinched away from him.

Instead, she allowed him to take the beer. She waved her wine glass towards the tree. "What're we gonna put on it?"

Elliot chuckled. "How about those lights?" He jutted his chin toward the window.

Liv laughed again, an easy laugh that felt as foreign to her as it sounded to Elliot. She shook her head at him and then went to the window, untacking the string of lights and returning with them. As he took them from her, their eyes met and she was suddenly terrified that he could see it - _read_ it in her eyes. It felt too naked, it was too much.

_I could do without being alone . . ._

The possibility of there being a response in El's eyes was enough to make her turn around again. She crossed back to the window and struggled to bring her focus back to the traffic outside. It was slowing some, as lovers and friends and family made their way home for the holiday. Her life was an exercise in unbalances - wanting to enjoy the moment, while reining herself in to the point of suffering.

Olivia was so grateful to not be alone on one more Christmas Eve, she just wished things were easier.

_It was too complicated._

They had been her words, not his. After Gitano, things had gotten too hard. The lines got blurred, and Olivia had chosen to leave rather than admit se couldn't promise what Elliot had wanted.

_We can't let that happen again._

But she could. She would. Olivia could never have imagined a scenario that involved Elliot's life on the line where she wouldn't make that same choice, over and over again. And while she could have placated him, returned to work, just waiting until their backs were to the wall again - she wouldn't. Because the truth was, there was no way for her to stand disappointing him that way again.

It had taken facing down Gitano for them to come as close as they ever had to saying too many unspoken things. Some of those nightmares that Liv awoke to, they were filled with the sound of Elliot's voice, the way it had strangled out of his throat while he rushed across the station floor. But even though Elliot had been separated, her respect for his tenuous marriage remained. She had left him, but not for long.

It was true that she enjoyed computer crimes, but in a way that she could never compare to the 1-6. Something about her conversation with Elliot, after he had gotten into it with Blaine, had shaken her resolve. The minute Elliot had turned around in that locker room, she knew she'd be coming back, despite having shown up to make excuses for the leaving. She thought she'd hurt him less, somehow, by not having the conversation, but she should have anticipated Elliot's fists flying in response.

He'd been so close to her that the air hummed between them, and that was when she knew - how hard it was going to be from then on, to maintain their strict boundaries.

"What do you think, Liv?"

El's voice came from so close behind her that she couldn't stop herself from visibly jumping. Olivia could almost feel the cold coming from his warming beer bottle in one hand. "Hey," El softened his voice, "you okay?"

Liv took a deep breath. "Yeah. Sorry. I must be gettin' tired."

_In more ways than one._

She was smiling again when she turned to him, and she eyed the tree from over his shoulder. "You did a great job, El. It's just a shame that I don't have anything else to put on it."

"How about this?"

Olivia looked down, then, and realized that he was holding a small, wrapped gift in the hand opposite the beer.


	4. Chapter 4

**Spoilers: Fault, Fat, Informed, Clock, Underbelly**  
  
Rating: K+ for the first 4 chapters

"Elliot!" He could hear her voice on the edge of a giggle again as she said his name, and Elliot's heart pounded. She looked at his face and he hoped she couldn't read how unsteady he felt. "We've been partners almost eight years, and you've never gotten me a Christmas gift. Or any other gift, for that matter," Liv said wryly.

"Yeah, well," El exhaled, "you know - old dogs and all that." He took a long swig of his beer and glanced out at the traffic Liv had been watching.

"What is it?"

El chuckled. "You grow up without wrapping paper, too?"

Olivia rolled her eyes as she passed him, to place her wine glass on the coffee table. He had even wrapped it himself - as sorry of a gift wrapper as he was - foregoing his usual gift bag for a box in dark blue paper, with red dots and a simple silver bow. He watched her eyes, looking at the gift, impatient for her to respond.

When it came to women, Elliot Stabler needed all the praise and road signs he could get. It was no secret that he had charm for days, but it felt like a century had come and gone since he had to flirt, let alone consider romance. Kathy had been a chapter of his life that had come before he even really knew what romance was. Duty was the 3-letter word their marriage had been built on. Until recently.

"So, are you gonna open it, or are we gonna play a guessing game?"

Liv could see that he was fidgeting. At last, she slid her fingers under the fold of the paper and relented against his anxiety. "Oh, El. It's wonderful. It's . . . " Olivia faltered. "What is it?"

Elliot laughed out loud in spite of his nerves. Placing his empty bottle on the kitchen island, he reached to Liv's hand and gently extracted what she was holding. Looking down at it, he grinned. "When Maureen was little, her daycare did this activity where all the kids were s'posed to create an ornament that showed what their parent did for a job . . ."

"This is _you_?" Liv's eyes widened.

"Great likeness, huh? I was, uh, still in the Marines. And Maur was three."

Liv laughed, more softly, and looked closer at the ornament in her hand. "Is that macaroni?"

"Rotini, I think."

"Right."

"Let's put it on the tree," El rushed, embarrassed.

"This is great, El. Really. But . . . don't you want to put it on your own tree?"

Clearing his throat, El went back to the tree, searching for the best place to hang it. "After Kathy moved out, I got going through some stuff at the house. Just, you know, sorting things for us getting our own places. When I found this, Kathy wanted to get rid of it." He hung it up and turned back to Liv.

"Well, you do have four kids, El," Liv said, "that's a lot of old pasta to hang up."

He wanted to tell her about the late nights in his basement, sifting through cardboard boxes thanks to his insomnia - worsened by his kids' not breathing nearby for him to listen to. He wanted to tell Olivia how he'd felt, looking back over years of memories and marriage. Funny, what could be contained in boxes. Secrets, for example. El had packed a few of those away over 20 years of marriage, too. The most important of which had been folded neatly and tucked into a box in the darkest of places eight years ago, when Olivia had walked into the one-six.

She had come back to the tree, and was touching the ornament gently. "Funny, I never would've pegged Kathy as the parent to easily let go of things," she murmured.

El ignored the layers of meaning in that one. "More wine?"

"Just a little."

Elliot came back to the couch with another beer and Liv's refreshed glass. She was finally relaxing, he saw, curled into her over-stuffed cushions with her legs drawn up. She was also getting tired - blinking slow and languorously. In truth, he had lost interest in the beer, but was grateful to have it in his hand, to help him resist the urge to touch her face, tuck her hair behind her ear. He had already taken huge risks, with the tree, and the snowball fight. Touching her just for lack of restraint would likely bring an abrupt end to what was turning out better than he had anticipated.

Despite all of this being his move, El was feeling more than a little un-anchored. He sometimes felt plainly like an asshole when it came to women: his soon to be ex-wife, his daughters, his mother, and of course, Olivia. Words and gestures that always started with the best of intentions somehow got interpreted as if in a language that only they understood, and try as he might, Elliot couldn't even glean a working knowledge, let alone become fluent.

He was tired, too, in his own way. Tired of being assured he was a good man, while women walked out the door. Tired of going to confession without the words to relieve the strain of having an emotional affair for eight years, and a physical affair in his own head that was becoming harder to escape.

After Gitano, Elliot had opened his mouth and done it again. He never believed that Olivia would leave, despite it being his idea to deal out some fucked-up ultimatum. How could she have stayed? Both of them knew, without having to say it, that it was an impossible promise - to work together and ignore the risks when the heat was pressing in. Even as the words were leaving his lips, he knew the option of having left Liv bleeding on the station floor while he dashed up the escalator had never been viable.

Even worse, he knew why she left without talking to him. He had known, instinctively, that he had pushed her to it, and like a good Catholic, he was ready to suffer. But Blaine had found the button to push that El thought he kept much better hidden.

_No wonder your partner dumped you._

It had stung him in a place too private, and his temper had immediately begun to run the show. Nobody ever got close enough to that secret box in the dark place - certainly not some temp partner with something to prove.

_You screwed her, and now you're tryin to screw me._

When his fist had connected with Blaine's face, he felt safe again. He knew that made him a grade-A prick, but Liv was gone and he'd never been good at wrangling his own temper the way she was. _She didn't dump me!_ the voice in his head had shouted, _I made her leave!_ It was what he couldn't say to anyone out loud.

The low tone of her voice, and the way she had looked at his chest where the shirt fell open. His inability to breathe had been what saved him from an immediate hard-on - and also possibly leaping the locker room bench to put his arms around her body in one bound. Pride kept him from begging, or taking back anything he had said, but he knew what the job was going to be like without her. It was already exhausting him.

Elliot _had_ to let her leave. What he had seen and heard, in her eyes, in his own voice through the Gitano disaster? _Bless me, Father, for I have sinned._

He wouldn't let himself - or her - work this job long enough for him to have to watch her die.

But he had to let her come back, too.

Kathy had been out of the picture for so long by then, he had picked back up at least half of his old Bachelor ways. Less food and more coffee, wearing wrinkled shirts to work, sleeping in the crib instead of the apartment he was paying for. It had never occurred to him how many of those small things were propped up by Liv when Kathy had given up trying. A part of him wanted Liv back so soon, simply to hear her voice say, _You look like shit, El_. Which she had - before she left again. If life had a favourite body part to abuse on Elliot, it was, without a doubt, his balls.

He had finally convinced himself to open that box - he saw himself, approaching it every day, shining a light into that secret corner. He was getting ready to spill its contents and trot each one out into the harsh light of day. After hearing the recording telling him that the number he had dialled was no longer in service, he felt more like tearing that secret box apart. He wanted to be done - with the job, with having partners, with everything. But the job reminded him of Liv, despite the pain of loneliness, and that was really what he had left.

When Dani Beck had confronted him in front of the court house, he was still viewing the job as a distraction, and had very little interest in having to school someone on how SVU operates. Then he realized that Dani admired him somehow, and though he was a grade-A prick, he was also a man with a wounded ego. He wanted the attention, and the company, of someone who was wounded in some of the same places he was. So he started to respond to Dani, started trying a little harder to act like she was really in the world with him.

But what was even more in the world with him than Dani Beck was his loneliness. Twenty years of marriage makes a person forget how to be alone. Elliot could never even really remember _being_ alone - from his mother's house, to the Marines, to marriage, then kids, the squad - alone was a foreign country he'd heard of but never visited. He had let himself get drunk, after one of those all-too-familiar cases that made him too aware of having three daughters, a case that had rattled both him and Dani. Dani was still new to him, in ways that Olivia had never been; he didn't know how to comfort her and himself at the same time. The loneliness had been like its own, living, breathing person that night - always behind him in places he couldn't catch.

He was missing Liv that night in a huge, palpable, head-pounding way. Combine that, with drinking just enough to numb himself, and you got what had happened. Dani was a blonde, like Kathy, and it helped him to convince himself it was safer, easier, than the metaphorical box he had stuffed back into its hiding place.

"Did you sleep with her?"

Liv's sleepy but serious voice, and the question he never could have anticipated, startled Elliot out of his own head so hard that he nearly dropped the beer bottle he was holding onto her coffee table, where it would surely have shattered. She obviously didn't mean Kathy - he had four kids to show for that one. He cleared his throat nervously.

"With . . ." he practically whispered the word, stalling desperately.

"With Dani." Liv's voice was a little stronger then, and she lifted her gaze from her wine to Elliot's face, not wanting to miss any of his familiar tells that she knew by heart.

As Elliot forced his endlessly blue eyes to meet Liv's curious, anxious dark ones, he heard that voice in his head again:

_Bless me, Father, for I have sinned._


	5. Chapter 5

The only logical conclusion that Elliot could deduce was that his body had forgotten how to produce saliva. He came to it after swallowing over his dry throat so many times he was sure it would start clicking any minute. He knew Liv expected an answer. He also knew she wouldn't speak again to spur him on, that it would be up to him to get his mouth working again. He swallowed another mouthful of beer as though it would provide some 11th hour escape from his moment of truth. Elliot thought of her as she'd been when they first partnered, and suddenly he had no idea how they had gotten here.

"What makes you ask?" he finally replied.

Fuck. He was a jerk; he knew it. The harder he tried to not be avoidant, the more he fucked up. "Liv," he tried again on an exhale, " . . . no. I didn't sleep with her."

Olivia didn't let any silence hang following his answer. "But something happened."

Just as with his priest, El wanted to be absolved without clarification. He preferred to be doled out Hail Marys rather than questions. "Yeah." Then, after a beat, "I was drunk."

Olivia looked away, and he knew she was deciding between sarcasm and . . . something else. In their entire book of unspoken rules, jealousy had multiple appendices, with bold black font advising **DO NOT DISCUSS**.

"She was cute," Liv said softly. El knew it wasn't a question, even as he reeled. He opened his mouth to pursue it, but she rushed ahead. "I came to see Cragen, after my UC assignment ended. Just for a few minutes. Dani . . . and you were at the desk. I only saw her for a second or two."

He knew from her tone she was trying to defend herself. More hurt than angry he said, "You didn't come to see me?"

 _I was going to_ , she wanted to say. "I felt like I had been away too long. She introduced herself as your partner."

"I kissed her," Elliot blurted, ". . . and I was drunk." He growled softly in his throat, pissed that it kept coming out like some half-assed alibi.

He waited patiently for the storm to start. The veiled jealousy, the sarcasm - maybe some cracks about blondes having more fun. His head was even bowed like in the church confessional, fighting not to close his eyes. Time seemed to crawl. Years passed.

Nothing.

Then, the clink of Liv's glass as she put it on the coffee table. El turned his head in time to see her rub the back of her neck with one hand. "I'm tired, Elliot."

He struggled, wondering if she meant it more broadly than in the context of the day. If she asked him to leave, he would. But, oh God, he hoped she wouldn't.

"Did you need a blanket?"

He was sure his relief was audible as he croaked out a, "Sure. Please."

Elliot didn't bother to keep track of the time, then, but he laid awake for what felt like hours. He was awake long after stretching out on the couch and putting the blanket Liv had thrown him over his legs, and after she'd turned the lights out, without a goodnight. She had retreated to her bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar, and although she didn't snore, Elliot was convinced she was asleep.

In almost every way, Elliot and Olivia's communication style had been the opposite of how he'd communicated with Kathy. Words were almost an afterthought with Liv, and everyone knew it was what made them the most solid partners in SVU. Any whispers over eight years that hadn't been about the truth or lie of a clandestine affair had focused on how eerily they had always fit - even when they fought.

But this was unavoidably different. This wasn't the beginning when El could test their temperature in five words.

_Are we good?_

_We're good._

In this one way, she was so like Kathy: swapping out disappointment and anger for sighs and neutral silences. If he was lucky, he could riddle his way through before the boiling point. If not, with Kathy, Liv had usually gone to bat for him at the last possible minute. But now, no one was coming to swoop in. Now, he was on his own - and, considering the stakes, he wasn't convinced he was doing such a good job.

Elliot froze, then, just as his self-deprecation was reaching its most familiar place, having heard a sound from Olivia's bedroom. He held his breath, listening to see if there'd be another. He heard it again.

He sat up, but hesitated, heart pounding, licking his lips. His first, intrusive thought had been that she was touching herself. Elliot's face flushed all the way to his ears as his skin caught fire. Shaking his head, he shut down his imagination before it could get too far, reminding himself that Liv was too private to ever entertain masturbating with company in her apartment.

Concerned that maybe she was sick from the wine, he managed to get his feet moving. He approached the door to her bedroom slowly, even though his sock-feet made no noise. There it was again - a moan married to a mewling noise that he couldn't quite process.

"Liv?" he said, but so quietly he knew there was no chance of anyone hearing him. By then, his hand was on the doorknob and he was pissed, because even after raising four kids his breathing was shallow as he took the last step forward to peer around the edge of the door.

A nightmare. El's heart lurched at the realization. Olivia had kicked the blankets nearly completely off the bed. She was drawn up into a ball, close to the headboard, with one pillow behind the small of her back, and the other clutched in a death grip close to her face. The faintest of lights was falling just close enough to the bed for El to know that she was in a cold sweat, and yet still, he hesitated.

This wasn't the crib at the precinct, where Liv slept lightly and briefly in her work clothes. There was no noise from the downstairs squadroom, wafting just loudly enough to keep El from gazing long at her sleeping form. Normally, he loved to watch her when her eyes were closed: at the desk, after working a 20-hour stretch, when she would rub her neck with both hands, or standing in the hallway after they had just spent hours together rolling a perp.

But now she groaned again, her forehead caught in the expression normally reserved for unexpected twists in their cases. He pushed the door open wide enough for him to step through and cleared his throat, softly, trying again: "Liv?"

She kicked out a foot, but didn't wake up. El crossed to the side of the bed that had a lamp, and leaned down, turning it on. "Hey. Liv," he whispered, raising his voice slightly.

"Elliot . . . "

"Yeah, it's me . . ."

But she wasn't awake yet. He saw her clutch the pillow tighter, her breathing was still rapid, and he couldn't stand any more. Elliot lowered his hand, letting it touch her clammy forehead with a single finger, opening his mouth on her name again.

"NO!" She was awake in an instant, ramrod straight in the bed, empty hands seeking the Glock that she'd left in the kitchen. She was panting as she met his eyes in the lamplight, chest heaving.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," Elliot breathed, "you were having a nightmare."

Liv waited long enough for her heart to slow and her eyes to adjust to the light. "It's ok. I'm ok. Thanks."

El was painfully aware that she was in only a tank top and underwear, and he busied himself with gathering the blankets she had kicked away, pulling them back up to the bed. "You, ah . . . you wanna talk about it?" he offered, keeping his eyes lowered.

She took so long to answer that Elliot took to imagining them frozen all night, him boring holes into the carpet, and Liv sitting blanket-less in the bed. "No," she whispered, unconvincingly.

"You sure you're alright?" he pressed.

"Yeah. I'll be alright," Liv assured him.

Satisfied that she was sounding more like herself, Elliot nodded, reaching for the lamp to turn it back off. Just as he reached the switch, Olivia's hand shot out and encircled his wrist tightly. El caught his breath, letting his gaze shift slowly to the right, back to her face.

"What if . . . I had never left?" was what she finally asked him. The mix of pain and betrayal barely held in check shot straight through Elliot, chilling him.

"Then I wouldn't have had to worry about you for weeks," he told her, breaking into a warm smile, "and I could've saved myself buying a new shirt, to replace the one Blaine ruined."

"What did he say, El, that set you off?"

Sighing, Elliot sat on the edge of the bed across from her, still refusing to look any lower than the dip of her throat. "He said that you dumped me."

Liv closed her eyes, wanting to laugh, but her tone came out incredulous. "Elliot, I didn't 'dump' you." She looked at him again. "You wanted me to shoot you!" Despite knowing that was an oversimplification, she plunged ahead, "More than that - you said it yourself - we couldn't be partners, unless the job still came first. And that's not where we were. Or, at least, I wasn't."

He nodded slowly. "Is that why you came back? You found a way to put the job first?"

"Is that what kissing Dani was for you?"

Keeping his frustration in check, he let his shoulders drop. "No. I was - "

"Drunk? Yeah, you mentioned," Liv sniffed.

" - lonely," he admitted. "All I had left was the job, and you. And I made damn sure to screw things up with you. The loneliness was eating me alive, Liv. I didn't know where you were, or how to contact you . . ." Elliot's voice broke. "I missed you."

She squeezed his hand gently. "I'm sorry. You don't owe me anything."

"Yeah, I do. I told you I made a mistake, with Gitano, but it wasn't true. Having your back has never been a mistake, Liv. I just felt so damn guilty - that kid died because of me, I felt like being put down would even things out.

"I know it was stupid. I was a coward. I pushed you to leave because I needed that control. Losing you by choice was the only losing you I could face."

The silence settled between them, then. It was heavy - huge, the silence of years between them, of glances across desks, the silence of the everything and nothing they had managed to say to each other in just shy of a decade.

Unsure whether it was the silence, or her semi-nakedness he couldn't take any more of, he picked up the blankets with both hands and tucked them around Olivia where she sat. "Tell me about your nightmare."

"It was about you. And Gitano," she confessed. "It's nothing new, El. I have nightmares a lot."

He wanted to crack wise about working together being a likely cause, but the starkness of it - the contrast of what they'd each had to come home to these years, made him stop. She deserved more than this. Better than this. What an asshole he'd been, wasting time trying to salvage a marriage that had run its course, always assuming that Liv's steel will was balm to all wounds. Now, she looked so small. Her tiny frame in the huge bed, the hardly noticeable decorations in the apartment until he had all but manifested a tree. Elliot ached as it all crashed down on him, too much for one moment and too heavy to hold.

"I'm sorry, Liv," he whispered.

"The boy died because of Gitano, not you Elliot," Olivia replied, and then, "But in my nightmares . . . he gets you, too." She swiped a tear angrily from her face with her knuckles. "I couldn't even lose you by choice! Being away was hell. I was punishing myself."

Taking her hand again, Elliot met her eyes in the lamplight. "Never punish yourself for my fuckups." He got up, turning off the lamp, and came around to her side of the bed. He finished tucking her in, and smiled in the dark, wondering if she could see it in the light thrown from the doorway. "Now get some sleep, or else Santa won't come."

He couldn't see her eyes, but she spoke again: "I punished myself because I got selfish, El. I punished myself because I needed you too much."

Then it seemed they were both holding their breath, as if it could hold time still as well.

He wanted to kiss her, more than he wanted anything else in that moment. He could feel it all the way into his veins, coursing. So if anyone had asked him why he went back to the blanket and the couch in the living room instead - he wouldn't be able to tell them.

But he would remind them, as he had reminded Olivia, that when push came to shove, he tended to be a coward.


	6. Chapter 6

Christmas morning dawned bright, clear and frosty. It had snowed some overnight, wet, heavy snow that coated the sidewalks and vehicle-tops, turning the city into an Ansel Adams calendar scene. It was the kind of Winter morning where the snow glinted and sparkled, daring you not to believe in wonder, daring you not to stroll city sidewalks with mittened hands wrapped happily around an eggnog latte.

And Olivia was missing all of it. She had yet to stir from the bedroom after her fitful night's rest, while Elliot had been up for an hour or so, trying to imagine the looks on his kids' Christmas morning faces. He had taken up residence in front of Liv's living room window, holding a hot mug of black coffee he'd made.

When he finally heard the sounds of her stirring, the clock was creeping toward 8:30. It held true that sleeping in was never really sleeping in for seasoned cops. As the sounds of the shower running came to an end, El left the window and got coffee ready for Liv as well.

"Merry Christmas!" El met her partway across the living room to hand her the coffee. "D'you get some sleep after?"

Liv watched his gaze linger appreciatively over her, as she stood a little sleepily on her feet. She had pulled on a pair of cotton NYPD sweatpants and a plain white, thin, long-sleeved shirt. Her freshly-washed hair was loose, wisping against her face as it air-dried. She sipped her coffee, willing the familiar heat not to bloom below her waist. "Some," she finally nodded. "Merry Christmas, El."

"I, uh, was going to make us some breakfast, but even I can't turn leftover delivery and expired yogurt into a real meal," El lamented.

Olivia chuckled. "How long have you been up?"

"Less than a couple hours," El shrugged and turned back to the window. "It's a real marshmallow world out there this morning."

Liv smiled over the rim of her mug. She had perched herself on the back of the couch, toes digging into the carpet for balance. Despite the nightmares, it was nice not to wake up alone that morning. Eyeing the Christmas tree in the corner with its lone decoration dangling, she smiled wider.

"So what do city people do on Christmas?" Elliot asked her, without a trace of superiority.

"I dunno, El. There's always another snowball fight. A rematch?"

It was his turn to chuckle. "You think you kickin' my ass is a good Christmas present?"

"I didn't hear you complainin' last night," Liv said lowly. She was almost enjoying herself. She could feel something that had been tethered inside her let go.

She kept smiling as she watched him leave the window again. He put his coffee down on an end table and came to a stop in front of her, nearly toe-to-toe. "About last night," he said, and his expression and tone were serious again.

Liv's face fell immediately, her breathing stuttered. _Here it comes_ , she thought, _there goes the metaphorical rug from under me_. She imagined him apologizing for everything, blaming the holiday, rushing out the door to go see his kids. They had let themselves forget that they don't do this - that they aren't allowed to have each other outside the boundaries of the job. And now she was going to pay for it.

She stared into the depths of her coffee. "Listen, El . . ."

"No, wait. What you said about having nightmares . . . I'm sorry."

Liv raised an eyebrow. "Sorry? You don't give me nightmares, Elliot. It's - "

" - the job. Yeah, I know. I have my fair share of nightmares."

"Then why are you apologizing?" Liv pressed, turning to set her mug down next to Elliot's.

"Because I . . ." he took a deep breath, "I don't like the idea of you coming home alone, to toss and turn all night with nightmares."

"Okay, so I'll sleep in the crib from now on. That better?" Sarcasm came so easily to her when it came to deflecting from herself.

"Liv." She could never meet his eyes when his tone was soft and concerned like this. "I worry about you."

"And I appreciate that, El. You're a great partner."

"What I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry that I haven't been there for you more. I should . . . pay more attention," he sighed.

Olivia could tell that he was struggling, but the alarm bells were going off again, and her instinctual reaction was to find the nearest emergency exit. The problem was, she honestly didn't know what to say. Be there for her more? What the hell was he getting at? They had never had any real problems in their partnership. Until Gitano.

_Until Dani._

"You're my best friend, El," she said softly. "I'm just . . . not very good at accepting help." Olivia shrugged. "From anyone. I'm used to doing things by myself. No one knows that better than you." She met his eyes then, and forced a smile.

Elliot reached a hand out and tucked Liv's soft, clean hair behind her ear. It was so tender and unexpected that she couldn't stop the widening of her eyes in response. "Yeah, you are stubborn as fuck, Benson. I will give you that," he smirked.

He was too close, somehow. In their few moments of talking, his feet had found their way between hers. They were hardly a breath apart, and it was an assault on her senses. She could smell his scent, see his muscles twitch when he moved - even feel heat baking off his naturally over-warm body. More than she could want anything else, Olivia wanted to wipe that damn smirk off his face.

Elliot closed his eyes. When he next spoke, his voice was just a whisper. "God, was I always this bad at this?"

"At Christmas?" Liv offered, still labouring to lighten the mood.

"No. No," he opened his eyes, "at talking about how I feel."

"How do you feel?" She cursed the thready sound of her voice, the race of her pulse.

"Like I've wasted a lot of time, looking but not seeing."

"Not seeing what?"

"You." He was done with words then, frustrated by the feeling of time sliding through his struggling hands.

He closed what little distance remained between them, and kissed her. El was not so sure that the kiss alone wouldn't kill him. Too many years were inside of him - years of staring across desks, daydreaming about how she looks when putting on her makeup, years of picturing her naked body as he took care of himself in the precinct shower, panting against the wet tiles. Still, somehow, he managed not to devour her, allowing ample space for Olivia to shove him, or knee him in the balls.

Yes, there they were: her hands flattened against his chest, and they were trembling. He braced himself for the shove. For the anger, the rejection.

But she didn't shove him. Her fingers seemed to trace the lines of his pecs through his sweater, and she leaned forward, pushing into the kiss. Her mind had gone so silent it could have been a desert wasteland. She wasn't thinking about how They Don't Do This, or about his almost-ex-wife. Sighing, she opened her mouth, daring Elliot's tongue to join in. Her fingers still cupped against his pecs as though she was holding her sanity there, she could already hear her breathing coming faster.

It had been so long since she had let anyone that she actually cared about touch her, that her body was nearly over-compensating in response. The moment Elliot's tongue brushed into her mouth, she became deliciously wet. There was not a single thing in that moment she didn't want - if she could have, she would have worn him like a second skin. He had been hesitant to move his hands, but finally he brought them to her sides, setting her skin abuzz with current.

"Elliot . . ." she groaned, managing to fit extra syllables into his name, and he couldn't stop his cock from twitching at the sound.

They were forced to at least take a breath. Forehead to forehead now, he wanted to tighten his grip on the sides of her rib cage and draw her ass forward to meet his still-hardening groin. But he'd be fooling himself if he thought he wouldn't be pushing his luck. He wanted her to talk.

_Olivia. Say something. Please, God._

Liv's head was spinning. Eight years of stockpiling ideas about things she believed would never happen were tumbling. Instead of weighing on her, they seemed to be bouying her up. Too long being lonely, being too righteous to be jealous of the ways Kathy had him that she couldn't.

 _Fuck it_ , she thought, _silent nights are overrated._

Opening her eyes, she lifted her head to meet Elliot's curious gaze. She let her fingers drift, lazily, from his chest to his shoulders, then down his arms. "Are you waiting for me to say no?" she asked, softly. "After all these years?"

El swallowed loudly. "I'm . . . waiting to see what you want."

Was it the Catholic guilt in him, she wondered, that helped him maintain his maddening chivalrous composure in a moment like this? Thankfully, Liv had no religious trappings to muddy the waters. Taking one of his hands in hers, she used her other to soundlessly pull the waistband of her sweats away from her belly. She navigated his hand to where she wanted it, letting her now-free hand reach out and curve around the back of El's neck. With a shift of her hips, she made sure that he met the full force of the flood between her thighs, humming throatily.

"Jesus," Elliot breathed, "Jesus."

He moved his fingers then, exploring the shape of her, the feel of her. The pads of his fingers swiped the hard peak of her clit. He was rock hard now, and on the verge of trembling. "Olivia . . ." El grit his teeth.

Liv leaned forward again, far enough to press her mouth to El's pulse point. He forgot about his attempt to speak, and lost the battle with his groin, putting both hands back on her hips and pulling her off the couch.

They fit this way, just as they had fit every other way for their eight years. Her legs held his hips easily, her weight felt familiar in his hands. She felt the push of his erection, the ridge of him meeting where she was soft. It made her let out her first real moan, and Elliot shuddered at the sound of it.

"Elliot?" she mumbled.

"Mmm," he managed.

"Take me to bed."

As a man who had been married 20 years, he took orders well. He ushered her onto the side of the bed that he'd tucked her into just hours before, annoyed that they were both still wearing so many clothes. Liv watched him pull off his sweater, and let herself stare, longer and more hungrily than she ever had in the precinct locker room. His gaze seemed fixed on her nipples, hard and visible through her thin shirt.

Reaizing he was caught, El grinned. "You're gorgeous, Olivia."

"You're not so bad, yourself, Stabler," she teased. She sat up and pulled off her own top. "I'll see your bet, and raise you one pair of pants."

His abs twitched as her fingers brushed the top of his jeans. Watching the top of her head, El was still wondering if this was a perfect dream that he'd lucked into. Then he could feel her hurried breaths, grazing his pelvis, his pubic hair, and it was so very real.

El growled low in his throat as Liv pushed his jeans and underwear off. She was fucking intoxicating in every way - the color of her skin, her dark hair and eyes, the pout of her lips, her voice. It was like his teen years all over again; he had no idea what to say.

Olivia hardly hesitated before she closed her hand around his cock, stroking him firmly. She heard him gasp, "God, Liv," and she smirked. He was nearly dripping with precum, and she put a hand on his ass to push him closer. Her tongue darted out, tasting him, then her mouth was over the head of him, sucking him clean.

He pulled her back after a moment, his chest heaving. "Liv," he panted, "at least gimme a chance before you kill me."

She giggled, and his entire body bloomed with heat. He was over her then, and she writhed as he touched all the parts she knew he'd longed to: his tongue on the shell of her ear, his hands in her hair, mouth and teeth marking her throat.

"Elliot . . ." she moaned it, whispered it, gasped it, yelped it. She wasn't addressing him, it was a mantra, a claiming of territory that had started so long ago. Nobody said his name the way she did.

He took a dark, hard nipple into his mouth, and her fingers pushed into his biceps. When he nibbled her there without having to be told, her hips bucked, catching his erection in the dip of her pelvis. Then his arm snaked under her, around her waist, and pulled her farther across the bed. Elliot's mouth slid to her belly button, her bikini line, dragging her sweats down and off of her in the process. He pushed her thighs open, kissing the dip where her thigh and torso joined. She could feel him, his breath warm above her hard clit. She was dripping. And then . . . nothing.

She opened her eyes to find Elliot looking straight at her, his deep blue eyes somehow mellowed. His voice was gentle and husky when he spoke. "Liv, I love you."

She took his hand that rested on her belly and laced their fingers together. "Me too, El."

His mouth was an astonishment her body could hardly reconcile. He took everything she had to offer, slowly, then faster, his tongue flattening against her clit. Her taste was new and yet so right, and he damn near _shone_ from being granted the privilege of drinking her in. After long moments with no sound other than his mouth making love to her, Liv's voice made him freeze.

"El . . . please."

Raising his head, he smiled. "Please what, Liv?" Without warning, he sank a finger into her, and his cock throbbed at the unearthly sound she made.

"I want to feel you inside me," she pleaded.

Elliot had so rarely been granted the opportunity to hear something so beautiful. He moved over her again, stroking a hand down her cheek, watching her ink-dark eyes, remembering them brimmed with tears in the night. So many years. Too many demons. He was accustomed to using his body to shield her.

In some way, this was the only line they'd never crossed. They had loved each other in all the ways they could when he'd been married, without it breaching El's moral code. There was no fear, only the certain knowledge that there was no going back. He reached between them and eased the head of himself inside her, watching her eyes, forcing himself to go easy.

"You're so wet . . . my God," he groaned, his mouth dropped to the curve of her neck, "you're perfect."

His strokes were slow, delicious, purposeful. She could feel the length of him, every ridge, feel him throbbing. She wanted to be full like this, always. This wasn't the temporary satisfaction that always came with her short-lived boyfriends.

This was a homecoming.

Liv met him, thrust for thrust, driving her hips down, mesmerized by the slap of their bodies together. She was aware of his breathing getting thready, she felt the cool sweat on his shoulders.

"Don't hold back," she whispered, "come for me, El."

Her tone was tender, and it rocked him right to his toes. He fucked her, hard, as she pressed her hand between them and rubbed her clit, her head dropping back. El couldn't take his eyes off of her. He wanted her over the edge before he would let go.

"Fuck . . . Elliot, oh! God!"

Everything throbbed, swelled, as the world seemed to move over for the occasion of their coming together. Olivia came undone, shaking as she rode her orgasm to the last, and Elliot followed her, putting her first as he always had. She hummed with satisfaction as he emptied himself inside her, letting his mouth find hers again, biting her lower lip.

They lay wordlessly in the tangled sheets then. Neither of them really could say for how long. It was the least alone that Olivia could ever remember feeling.

When she finally did stretch and look over her head toward the bedroom window and the shifting daylight, she saw that it was snowing again.

"Maybe this is what city people do on Christmas," she said thoughtfully.

Elliot chuckled and shifted. "Well, it is a pretty good Christmas gift."

"El?"

"Mmm?"

" . . . I love you."

He breathed deep. Smiled. Took her hand. Olivia knew if she slept now, she could escape the nightmares. If she slept now, it would be a silent night.

But they wouldn't be alone.

And that could never be overrated.


End file.
